"Now," commented the aged Nestor, "we'll not go over by the B-line. What they don't know won't hurt 'em. We'll jist slip back home the way we come. Tomorry will be plenty of time to go over the hay-he'p matter, en on Monday we must cinch the deal."
15[ToC]
The great Burns warehouse in Adot was built back in the impulsive days following the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Notwithstanding the fact that the young nation was engaged in a civil war that challenged its existence, there was faith that right would prevail, hope in the future of national expansion, and charity assumed her wonted place. In 1862 Congress incorporated the road, borrowed the funds to build, and bonused the enterprise with grants of land—greater in area than the State of Pennsylvania.
And there was need for national expansion and the development of the vast empire west of the Mississippi. At the close of the Civil War, more than a million soldiers were discharged to seek new homes in an uncongested area. A million immigrants came from impoverished Europe in the four succeeding years, begging for freedom and a place to live. These millions too were given bonuses of grants of land, and soon the uninhabited West was dotted with primitive homesteads and scattered ranches that must be served. Food, in all its varieties, is a primal necessity. Warehouses, clumsy predecessors of modern stores, must be constructed at advantageous points to shelter foods and make distribution to remote sections. Some called them trading posts.
And so, back in the colorful days of the building of the fast-growing West, young Isaac Burns constructed his warehouse. It was high and wide, if not handsome. It had a driveway through it—handy for the four or six teams that came to unload flour, sugar, salt, spices, bolts of fabrics, farm implements, or what-have you. Handy, too, for the rancher or miner that came to buy at retail (but in wholesale quantities) a full year's supply of merchandise and food.
But in the changing economies of a fast-growing republic, the warehouse plan was to take its place with the ox yoke, the spinning wheel, the mustache cup, and the Prince Albert coat. Hard roads and bridges took the place of ill-defined trails, and gasoline brought the rancher to trading marts daily, instead of once a year.
Young Jethro Burns added a corral to the now useless warehouse and traded in livestock. Joe Burns, of the next generation, closed off one side of the driveway to make a storage room. But notwithstanding its favorable location in the center of town, the room remained idle. Except as a repository for a few odds and ends and its occasional uses on election days, the old warehouse rested in its past glories. It was an easy conquest for the persuasive, zealous Paul Curtis, the newly arrived Nazarene minister, to gain permission for its use for church purposes. Seemingly easy it was to commandeer many of the community's extra chairs, benches, settees, and kegs to accommodate the limited but growing congregation. A small platform was built at one end, lights were added. And now, exhortations and songs of praise filled the air that was once vibrant with the bawling of restless calves and the bleating of timid lambs.
In the week preceding the event, a great muslin banner hung across the warehouse front proclaiming: